Keep Your Story Straight
by stingrae90
Summary: Benji had always known the world was a little crazy, and his teammates even more so, but that still hadn't prepared him for the fact of aliens invading New York, or the footage of someone who looked an awful lot like William Brandt fighting them with a bow and arrow of all things...
1. First Contact

**A/N:** I can't seem to get this idea out of my head, so I'm writing it. And I've seen very few fics where Benji or Jane get to react just as much as Ethan, so that is also why I'm writing this. Have fun! (Also posted on AO3).

* * *

He was early, but that was okay. It wasn't like there was anything _life-threatening_ going on right now. For a change. And that was nice. It was just an evening with friends, relaxing over some good food and a few beers, letting go of the tension that always accumulated after one too many save the world missions.

Now if only someone other than _himself_ would get here, it would be awesome. Benji Dunn scowled at the table top in front of him, absently shoving a napkin around on the battered surface. How often had they come to this bar and grill, again? It seemed as if it had become Ethan's favorite post-mission decompression meeting place.

And to be fair, it was a great place. The beers were good, the food was good, the weather – usually – cooperated with them and wasn't pouring rain when they were here and the people were friendly. It was accepted by the employees here that Ethan and his friends had high stress jobs. Benji smirked slightly as he recalled Will's completely serious face as he told a wide-eyed waiter that sometimes he just wanted to _get away from the stress_, but you know, _he couldn't even talk about it_, except, well, his friends were in the same kind of work and they understood and he hated that people kept _asking_ what he did for a living…

The waiter had spread the news, and suddenly, Benji, Jane, Ethan and William had been adopted by the employees, who defended their privacy ferociously. They always had a table when they arrived, even if one had to be cleared in a hurry. They got free refills on anything that wasn't alcohol. The owner – a middle-aged woman named Shannon with graying brown hair and dancing dark eyes - was firmly against using alcohol as a means of drowning your problems and wasn't going to risk any of them being too drunk to drive themselves home. In her words, "If you want to be idiots and become statistics, be my guest. You won't do it here."

Benji was pretty sure it was this statement which had made Will get so attached to her. It had been a pretty epic night, two missions ago, when they had come in, sore and weary and bone-tired, to find a group of drunk college co-eds making a mess of the terrace area and ignoring every attempt Shannon made to get them to leave. It had obviously long passed the point of asking them to settle down.

Shannon had sighed, and headed back behind the bar to call the police to remove the idiots, when Brandt had stopped her with a hand on the arm, and a small grin. Benji and Jane had watched, gaping, as their teammate had proceeded to insert himself into the rowdy group with barely a ripple, and then proceeded to make each and every one of them go red with shame and embarrassment with well-placed comments and scathing observations.

Ethan – typical of the man – had just grinned and said "Chief Analyst," in response to Jane and Benji's dropped jaws. The drinks had all been on the house that night.

"What's got you in the dumps?"

Benji jumped, badly startled, as Jane slid into the seat next to his, grinning. His drink sloshed as he jostled it, and then attempted to save it. Another hand came from his left, catching the wobbling glass before Benji's fumbling could completely tip it over and he looked up into Ethan Hunt's quietly amused expression.

"Jumpy tonight, Benji? We haven't even been on a mission lately."

Benji made a face, and then grinned at his team leader. "Doesn't mean I don't still jump out of my skin when any of you ninja your way up behind me."

Jane propped her chin on one loosely curled fist, humor dancing in her expression. "I did not 'ninja' up behind you. I walked, like a normal person. And shouldn't you be able to 'ninja' as well?"

"Communications!" he sing-songed at her. "I leave the impersonations and gravity defying acrobatics to the rest of you."

Jane laughed, and Benji beamed. He loved it when he made her laugh. Or when he made any of his team mates laugh, but really, it was nicest when he got Jane to do it. She lit up when she laughed and it was beautiful to watch.

"Speaking of the rest of us," Ethan said, taking his own seat. "Have any of you heard from Brandt in the past few days? I haven't been able to get him to respond to my messages."

Benji frowned and Jane stopped laughing. "Really?" the communications expert asked. "I thought he was just busy with that new posting he was setting up. Didn't he confirm he was coming?"

Ethan shook his head. Benji exchanged a worried look with Jane. That wasn't like their analyst. Benji dug his phone out, and clicked through to his messages. "Huh," he said. "Last I have is his griping about the red tape IMF makes him fill out for, and I quote, _every single nail in the building. This is taking the saying about the nail and the horseshoe a little far." _He double checked the date stamp and his frown deepened. "That was five days ago."

Ethan nodded, his expression thoughtful. "I texted him about meeting today four days ago," he offered, then looked across to Jane. "When did you last hear from him?"

Jane shook her head. "Over two weeks ago. I've been busy with the first aid recertification and looking for a new apartment. He promised to help me look last I talked with him, but we haven't been in contact since." Worry battled with seriousness on her face; Agent Carter fighting with the friend Jane for dominance. "Are we sure it's not just a new assignment that's causing this?"

Ethan shrugged and Benji could feel his fingers twitching as he longed for his computer. "I can check to make sure after I get my laptop, but otherwise…" he trailed off and shrugged as well. Even if William Brandt had applied for – and received – permission to be a field agent again, he was still technically an analyst as well. He had jobs that the rest of them were not allowed in on, and sometimes they had had to go on missions without him, when he couldn't be spared. Will always made the effort to be there for them, though.

"Then," Ethan began, but he didn't get any further. Across the terrace, near the entrance to Shannon's domain, a commotion broke out. Some people were fighting to get out the door while others were fighting to get in, the words of each of them a confusing jumble and the three IMF agents could only pick out a few.

"-New York, of course it's New York-"

"-gotta be a fake-"

"-_knew_ aliens were real!"

"-kill us all!"

They didn't need to consult each other to know what to do. They'd worked together under terrifying circumstances too often to need to do that. Benji flipped a ten down onto the table to cover his drink and a tip, Jane went around to a side entrance that everyone else seemed to have forgotten in their panic and Ethan began calmly directing people out of the tangle in the doorway, restoring order as Benji made sure all the chairs were out of walking paths so no one tripped and freaked out any _more_ than they already were.

Couldn't the chaos leave them alone for _one meeting_? Really? This was the first time they'd managed to get together _not_ in the wake of a mission in nearly six months. Benji had been looking forward to relaxing with his friends without the added stress of wondering who was pushing themselves too far for their recent wounds.

"Benji!" Ethan's urgent call had him abandoning his sorting of chairs and following his team leader into the now much less chaotic bar area, where every TV seemed tuned to the same station. That struck Benji as odd. Shannon made sure there was always a variety on her TVs for her patrons. Not everyone liked the same thing, after all.

"My god…" Jane whispered, already at Ethan's side, one hand covering her mouth as she stared. Benji finally focused on what was playing on the screens and felt his jaw drop.

Was that a…flying whale? He blinked, scrubbed at his eyes with both hands and looked again.

Nope. Still there.

"What the _hell…?_"

Jane gave a shaky laugh. "I guess everyone was justified in freaking out."

Ethan's already tense form rocked forward slightly. Benji glanced over and wondered just when Ethan had lost all that color in his face. He didn't usually _do_ shock. Not like normal people, anyway. He didn't do _anything_ normally –

"Is that Brandt?"

"_What?!"_ Benji nearly gave himself whiplash looking back at the TV Ethan was studying so intently and Jane was suddenly mission alert on Ethan's other side.

"I think…no, no, go back, come on, that's obviously Iron Man, who was the other man, come on…"

Benji saw it then, too. A wobbly picture, to be sure, but as it steadied, he caught a glimpse of familiar features drawn into a frown of concentration just before the feed jumped again to the eye-catching red and gold of Iron Man.

Benji exchanged shocked glances with his teammates. Ethan nodded resolutely, and without another word, they left, heading for the nearest computer that Benji could use to get some answers for all of them.

Since when did William Brandt, analyst and sometimes field agent, use a _bow and arrow_ to fight space-whale alien…beings. When?


	2. New Intel

"_Reports of the aircraft that crashed in Midtown earlier today indicate it may have been a new type of military jet-"_

Interesting, but not relevant. Moving on.

"_-on Man was sighted fighting with the aliens, a battle which is still ongoing, from all reports-"_

Nothing new there. Every news station or site Benji could find was focusing on Iron Man as the only point of recognizable news coverage. They'd started repeating themselves five minutes in. Next.

"_-vernment advises everyone not in the midtown area to stay inside and away from all windows or doors. Find a sheltered area and stay tuned to-"_

Argh, if people couldn't figure out not to head into the epicenter of an alien attack, there was really no hope for the human race and IMF had been wasting its time – and its agents' – for all these years. Benji really didn't want to think about that.

"_-unconfirmed reports of a man dressed like Captain America-"_

He was not interested in gossip and comic books, thank you very much. _God,_ could people not put together costume and comic book character to get convention or themed party? It wasn't hard. That was practically Intelligence 101, right there…

"_-speculation that the man and woman seen fighting the aliens on the streets are part of a governmental defense organization, though no names have been given as of yet-"_

Benji sat up straighter. This station had managed to get a picture of the people they were talking about. The quality still wasn't the best, but he would know Will's features anywhere as long as he wasn't using a mask. Benji froze the feed and set an enhancement program running, trying to boost the quality to something a bit clearer. Then he restarted the feed.

"_-but our reporter on the scene is keeping us updated on the events as they happen. Karen?"_

Static, then a woman's voice, obviously scared and just as obviously burying it in professionalism, came through.

"_It's still a bit hectic out here, James. Those aliens came out of nowhere, though there's been some speculation on the ground about a portal of some sort above Stark Tower. We've taken shelter in an office building that seems to be out of the direct line of attack for now, though the explosions and screams are still clear from our position."_

"_Can you tell us some more about the two that rescued you and the other bus passengers, Karen?"_

"_It was a man and a woman. None of us caught a name for either of them. I got a good look at them both, though. The woman is a redhead, wearing what can only be termed a cat suit. A couple of the aliens got on the ground by the bus, and she's obviously a master of hand-to-hand combat, James. Some of the moves she pulled off I wasn't aware were _possible_ outside of Hollywood."_

"_I'd say it's a good thing she did, though, Karen! We'd hate to have lost someone there."_

"_I agree!"_ The hysteria briefly made a reappearance and Benji winced as James visibly scrambled for a way to calm his coworker down and keep the report going at the same time. It had to suck, dealing with these types of situations without any of the training that government agents got. He just hoped they'd fake technical problems if Karen really lost it over the phone.

"_Uh, Karen! Karen, what about the man? The pictures you managed to get made most of the female portion of our staff swoon, you know. They're jealous you go to meet him in person!"_

There was a watery laugh over the phone, then Karen's voice came back much calmer than it had been before. Benji mentally applauded James on his successful distraction.

"_Too bad we didn't have time to exchange numbers, I suppose!"_

"_Tell us about him, then, Karen. That's the clearest picture we have from you, actually. The one where he's helping that kid out of the bus window. What was happening then? Why not get everyone out the door?"_

"_It was jammed, and the driver was unconscious, James," _Karen returned, somber. _"It got pretty chaotic in there, and then someone banged on the window from the outside. It started the woman who was sitting there, because she didn't see him coming up."_

"_Did he say anything?"_

"_Told us that we had to get out of the bus and inside a building, preferably in a basement. The woman told him we couldn't get out, we couldn't get the door open or any of the emergency exits and the windows were too small for most of us. That's about when we started thinking clearly again, James. There was only one kid on the bus, and he was just barely small enough to fit through the window when we got it down as far as it would go. Some of the men went to try to force the door open again, and myself and the boy's mother coordinated to get the boy through the window while the man waited on the other side to take him the rest of the way to the ground. After he sent the boy to safety, he helped open the front doors and we all got to safety, this office building we're sheltering in right now."_

"_You said in your initial report that the woman was using guns and hand-to-hand. How did the man fight? I hear it's quite a story!"_

"_I'll say! He had a couple of guns in holsters on his thighs, James, but his main weapon seems to have been a bow and arrows!"_

"_Was he any good?"_

Benji paused the feed again as the clean-up program beeped at him and stared in frank disbelief at the results.

As James had said, it was a photo of the man that most of the media had taken to calling 'the Archer' for lack of a name, arms outstretched to receive a terrified looking boy of eleven or twelve while his mother got him through the window with sheer terrified desperation. The clean-up program had enhanced the photo enough that Benji could catch a glimpse of another woman behind the mother, equally terrified and equally determined, counterbalancing the woman so her son didn't end up flung out of the window or stuck uncomfortably half in and half out. That had to be Karen.

But what arrested Benji's attention the most was not the odd choice of weapons on the Archer. Nor the oddly familiar emblem on his uniform, though he set another program running to find a match for it. No, what arrested his attention was an instant recognition of the features of this mysterious man.

The tight set of the shoulders screamed Will when he knew they were running out of time. The furrowed brows were undeniably Chief Analyst Brandt when civilians got caught in the cross-fire of their missions. And the fierce concentration and slightly off glance that indicated the Archer had been looking around even as he guided the boy to the ground could be nothing other than Agent Brandt on full alert.

This was William Brandt. He didn't need a facial recognition match to tell him that, but he would run one anyway. He _was_ a professional, after all.

* * *

"You've got something for me, Aaron?" Jane asked almost before she had thumbed her acceptance of the incoming call on her phone. There wasn't much she could do right now, not with Benji mining the media sights and governmental channels for information on the attack and the unidentified members of the small group fighting the aliens in New York and Ethan off trying to pry information about Will's latest assignment out of their superiors. She didn't have the clearance for a lot of the conversations Ethan was trying to have, and she didn't have the technical know-how that Benji did.

What she _did_ have, though, were connections and favors ready to be called in. Aaron Blackwell had been part of the training class ahead of her, but they had been paired on several missions before they'd both been cut loose to try their wings in the lead. Aaron had ended up finding his niche in the organizational aspects of leading and been transferred to the administrative end of IMF, while Jane had found herself hand-picked to be on Ethan Hunt's team. The easy friendship they'd formed in the field had lasted through every reassignment they'd been handed though, and they regularly met outside of work for drinks and occasional movie nights. Aaron had been her other choice of new apartment hunting partner after Will.

"_I have no idea what your analyst is up to, Jane, but he's gotten himself involved in some deep shit."_

Jane felt her heart sink. "Oh? How deep?"

"_Okay, well…you know the IMF works with other government organizations. Sharing information and threat levels and the like. Ever heard of SHIELD?"_

Jane frowned, searching her memory. "Maybe once or twice. I think Ethan mentioned them the last mission we had. Something about recognizing one of their agents? He wasn't very forthcoming about details, but we left the area pretty quickly and our target was shifted by headquarters after Ethan called in."

Which had been beyond odd, but Jane hadn't said anything against it. Ethan and Will had both been acting oddly after that sighting and it hadn't been hard to figure out that it was something she and Benji didn't have the clearance to know about yet.

She could not _wait_ for her next review. It would be so much easier in the field when she was allowed access to the same information that set Ethan and Will on edge on missions like that.

"_I'm not surprised. They're a covert organization on a level that makes IMF look like the CIA on a really bad day. On the surface, it looks like they do the same things we do, but they deal in the weird cases in actuality."_

"Our missions aren't normally weird?" Jane returned sardonically. She could think of quite a few examples of weird without even trying hard.

"_I'm talking weird as in sci-fi, Jane. Or super advanced tech, whatever you want to call it. The sort of cases that would get you thrown in a psychiatric ward if you talked about them. I've got it on good authority SHIELD is part of the reason Iron Man hasn't been arrested for gross endangerment and treason."_

"Treason?!" Jane yelped. Tony Stark was an obnoxious genius who bordered on the patronizing in nearly every setting, but Jane never would have accused the man of treason.

"_Do you know how powerful that suit actually is, Jane? And he refused to let the government anywhere near it, just after he announced he was stopping all weapons manufacture of Stark Industries. Most of our weapons came from SI, Jane. He was held captive in Afghanistan for three months by a terrorist cell. It looked _bad_ when he got back. It was put down to PTSD at first, but when he didn't retract it…well. I'm sure you saw the footage of the hearing."_

Swallowing nervously, Jane hmm-ed an affirmative down the line. She'd never really thought about that. Tony Stark wasn't her concern and his tech didn't interest her unless she had to use it. The idea of a Tony Stark successfully brainwashed or blackmailed into being an enemy of the United States, though…that was terrifying.

"So," she cleared her throat and plowed forward. Stark's almost arrest for suspected treason could be nightmare fodder later. Will needed her focused right now. _Everyone_ needed her focused right now. "SHIELD's…what? Riding herd on Tony Stark? Or just keeping an eye on him?"

"_As far as I can tell, it's a mix of both. Like I said, SHIELD is the _ultimate_ covert organization. It's hard to get anything more than rumor on them. I only know as much as I do because I handle some of the information sharing IMF and SHIELD do."_

Jane caught his unspoken warning and grinned.

"Consider this three favors used up, then, Aaron. I'll consider it more than worth it if it gets me closer to Will."

"_You better,"_ Aaron snorted, and then sobered. _"Like I said, he seems to be involved deep with SHIELD. That new installation you said he was setting up? It's not one of ours. We have a record that it exists and is a research facility of some sort for SHIELD, but nothing else I can access. There might not be anything more. Brandt is listed as a liaison for whatever the project is. And get this Jane, there's a note in his file that puts a priority on his liaising with SHIELD over IMF missions."_

Jane blinked, trying to make that work in her head.

"That…how does that work? He's an IMF agent, Aaron. Not one of SHIELD's."

"_You got me there, but that's all I have."_

"I appreciate this, Aaron. You have no idea how much."

"_Think I can guess. And…Jane, I assume you've seen the footage out of New York already, and it's why you called me, but…"_

There was something off in Aaron's voice. Jane unconsciously shifted her stance until she was balanced on the balls of her feet, ready for anything. "What, Aaron?"

"_That installation? It was in the New Mexican desert."_

Jane lifted her eyebrows, attention caught. "Was?"

"_Yeah…Jane, I double checked the satellite footage. It's a crater at least a mile wide now. I thought you needed to know that too. I sent the footage to your email. Whatever's going on, SHIELD is in it thick, and I think Brandt got sucked into it along with them."_

Jane didn't remember her goodbye to Aaron, though she knew she gave him one. The phone was off now, after all. She had to have said goodbye. But Jane was far more worried about just what Will had gotten himself involved in to be so solidly in the middle of what seemed to be SHIELD's mess. Her eyes drifted over to the TV playing the footage out of New York just in time to see the news station play another hastily captured cell phone video of screaming civilians, attacking aliens, and, not quite out of the camera line, a man she would swear even under torture was William Brandt, stabbing one of the aliens with an arrow before he whirled to shoot the same arrow into another trying to sneak up on him.

He _looked_ like her teammate, sure, but he wasn't _fighting_ like her teammate. There was something wrong, whether in the information she had, or in the footage itself.

But so _much_ footage that showed the same man over and over couldn't be faked easily. And Benji hadn't found any hint that the chaos in New York was anything other than what it seemed.

Jane was uncomfortably reminded of a dusty apartment in Dubai, of adrenaline and failure three times over and the utter certainty that _someone_ was holding information back when they needed all the assets they could get right then.

She didn't want to doubt Will again, but with so much evidence contradicting itself, she didn't know what to think or who to believe.


	3. Undercurrents

Benji wearily rubbed at his eyes, listing slightly in his seat. Ethan hadn't returned from the Seattle headquarters yet and Jane was parked in front of the TV, sharp eyes scanning every bit of footage for a trace of their analyst.

Or not their analyst. Benji still wasn't sure, despite what his tech was telling him. The facial recognition software had returned the expected result and it still blipped softly on Benji's laptop, drawing his eye periodically.

_Match: Brandt, William, Analyst/Field Agent IMF_

He wondered briefly if the fact that Will's title of "analyst" was listed first was somehow connected to what Jane said was noted in his file. And where the hell did SHIELD get off appropriating one of IMF's agents for their own use? More importantly, where did they get off dragging his teammate and friend into setting up some secret research facility that _blew up_ nearly three days ago?

Which probably explained why Will hadn't been answering anyone's texts or calls. Benji just hoped it was because his _phone_ had been smashed in the collapse, and not that _Will_ had been smashed in the collapse. But if the Archer actually was Will, as Benji's eyes and the software were both telling him…

This was getting repetitive. They needed Ethan to get back with his portion of their information, so they could actually decide on a course of _action_. Things always worked better for Benji's team when they were in motion. Staying still never seemed to invite good things.

"Benji!"

Jane's exclamation, half demand for attention and half disbelieving gasp, had him scrambling over the coffee table – who cared if it was fragile and half made of glass, this was _important_ – to collapse next to her in front of the TV. Jane grabbed his arm, never taking her eyes off the TV, face strained and stiff.

"Jane?" Benji questioned. The news didn't seem any different than it had been, just more aliens and screaming civilians and those six brave or insane – or insanely brave or bravely insane – individuals who were fighting them back where they could. Because somehow the _Hulk_ had gotten involved in this, and was even smashing things that needed smashed, and not random civilians. Benji didn't know _how_ that had happened, wasn't sure he _did_ want to know, but he wasn't going to question it. He was fairly certain the unpredictability of the Hulk's movements and attacks was keeping their side – humanity's side – from being flattened like so much road kill. Well, the Hulk, and the red-caped man who seemed to be able to shoot _lightning_ out of a hammer, of all things. Benji's brain started wondering about the logistics of the tech that could conduct that type of current but derailed when Jane inhaled sharply next to him.

Berating himself mentally for letting his attention wander, he refocused on the TV, where the news anchor was saying something about new footage from the attack. Jane's tense gaze never wavered from the screen as she spoke over him.

"I thought I saw…They readjusted several weather cameras to get some idea of what was going on without endangering their reporters by sending them into Midtown, but…" Jane's grip on his arm tightened almost to the point of pain. "There!" she nearly screeched in his ear as the feed cut to a live video. Benji didn't care.

It wasn't the best quality video. Weather cameras were not meant for close detail, but sweeping views of incoming weather fronts, after all. Benji spotted what had Jane so worked up not because it was easy to find, but because of the mass of aliens converging on one point in the video. Occasionally, one of the aliens would break off, flying a jagged pattern before crashing into a building or another alien, or their air sleds would explode, courtesy of what could only be the arrows Will was carrying. There were no small bursts of light from Iron Man's repulsors or the blinding flash of the red-caped man's lightning. The only other distance weapon available was the arrows.

Benji felt as if his stomach had dropped through the floor. "Please," he whispered, voice wrecked. "Please, tell me that is not Will."

Jane's grip tightened, her nails digging sharply into his skin, and the top floors of the building the aliens had converged on erupted into flames.

* * *

Ethan quietly closed the door to Benji's apartment, feeling the frustration that had started to mount halfway through his conversation with the Seattle director of operations boiling just under the surface of his control. If he wasn't careful, it was going to erupt into full-fledged anger and send him off half-cocked to demand answers from SHIELD itself if he had too.

But that wouldn't be helpful, and would likely result in _more_ blocks being put in his way instead of less. So that option was out.

"_Agent Brandt may be a member of your team on occasion, Agent Hunt, but he is _also _one of the best analysts we have. You knew he wouldn't always be available for your team's missions when you insisted on including him. Brandt is first and foremost an agent of the IMF and you do not get to dictate how the IMF utilizes its agents. We needed him as our link to that SHIELD project. Now, I have already confirmed that Agent Brandt was not present when the facility imploded. That's all you need to know."_

"_Sir, I-"_

"_I have entertained your ego long enough, Hunt. You have your confirmation of life. Unless you would _like_ to be assigned the next mission to Siberia that comes up, get out of my office."_

Ethan shook his head, and clenched his fists, glaring at the floor. Okay, if the IMF wasn't going to help him find the missing member of his team, he and Benji and Jane would just have to do it on their own. They'd operated under worse circumstances before without the benefit of the security net that the IMF's resources provided. And even if most of them had walked away with some variant on a serious wound, they had all come back alive.

He'd gotten confirmation that Brandt had been alive as of five hours ago, and he'd already seen the footage out of New York, that suggested Brandt was in the middle of that chaos. Benji would have a positive ID by now and hopefully Jane had managed to get more useful information than he had through her contacts.

"I don't give a damn about Iron Man! Go back to the-"

"Jane, you yelling at the TV is _really_ not helping my concentration!"

"If they would focus on what's actually _important_, I wouldn't be yelling!"

Ethan moved so fast through the hallway into the sitting room that he didn't consciously register the movement. In Benji's living room, a tableau Ethan was more familiar with in the middle of missions reigned. The TV was flashing images of the battle in New York periodically, interspersed with a flustered looking news anchor and slightly panicky "experts" who had no idea what they were talking about. Jane had a notebook open on the coffee table, notes and times and scribbled diagrams covering most of the two open pages, while she alternated glaring at the TV and at Benji. Ethan tilted his head and then decided that he could ask her about the diagrams later. From the fierce look on her face, anyone that got in her way was going to get his head bitten off, no matter what he said. Benji was camped out in front of two different laptops. Ethan could see the blinking results of a facial recognition scan on the one facing the doorway he stood in. He didn't need to be able to read the text to understand the implications of the photo on the screen and the green lined results box.

_Damn it._ There went the idea that they _wouldn't_ have to fight aliens to get their analyst back, however faint that hope had been.

"It's not like they know we're more worried about Will than Stark, Jane!"

"Stark isn't news! Not right now! He stopped being news ten minutes into their coverage, after they repeated themselves for the eighth time in a row!"

While he was relieved that nothing seemed to have gone wrong here, which had been his first assumption, this verbal sparring match between his remaining team members was not very enlightening. _Something _had gotten them even more worked up than the footage out of New York had.

"What happened?"

Benji jerked enough that he bumped the computer he had never stopped typing furiously on even as he argued with Jane. It wobbled precariously before Benji rescued it. Jane spun, notebook clenched tightly in one hand, pen in the other.

"Ethan!" resounded through the air in a two part chorus. The sheer desperation he heard underlying their words made the hairs stand up on the back of his neck.

"What happened?" he repeated, cautiously stepping further into the room.

For a moment, there was silence, and then both of them started speaking at once.

"I got a match on the facial recognition-"

"Aaron told me that Will was acting as liaison to-"

Jane and Benji glanced at each other; Jane bit her lip and Benji rubbed the back of his head. An unspoken agreement passed between them. They turned back to Ethan, who raised an impatient eyebrow at them.

"Well?" he demanded.

"They blew up the building Will was on-"

"I'm searching for a way to track-"

Ethan tensed as his agents spoke over each other again; not liking what he had heard Jane start to say. He held up a hand before either of them could start for a third time. He pointed at Jane.

"You first. Start at the beginning. What did you get from your contact?"

Jane took a deep breath, visibly resettling Agent Carter around herself before she spoke. Ethan waited mostly patiently for her to speak.

"Aaron looked up Will for me. The installation he was helping set up is a SHIELD research facility, and he's listed as a liaison for the IMF. There's a note in his file that puts priority on his liaison duties over missions for the IMF and the facility he was helping with is a crater in the New Mexican desert right now." Jane's eyes were haunted as she stared at him. "I have the satellite footage."

Ethan gritted his teeth. He didn't like the sound of that note, but it fit with the impression he'd gotten from his conversation with the director earlier and he'd already known about the fate of the research facility. He nodded. "Benji, go."

Their technician launched into his report as if it had been a physical effort to hold it back while Jane spoke. Ethan really couldn't blame him. "Most of the coverage is focusing on Iron Man. There's a portal of some sort over Stark Tower that these things are coming from but no one can seem to shut it down. I found a channel that managed to get a picture of Will and the woman helping some people escape a bus that got caught in the crossfire. One of the passengers was a reporter for the station and she took the pictures. I cleaned up the photo and sent it through facial recognition and it came back positive for Will." Benji paused to queue something up on his laptop and turned it to face Ethan. "Jane's been keeping an eye on the TV coverage since she got off the phone with Aaron. She saw something and I've found the video to try and boost it, but there isn't much I can do with a weather camera."

Jane took over, face grim. "We've ascertained that there are three distance capable fighters of the six facing the aliens," she told Ethan, not a twitch betraying the oddity of her statement. "Iron Man has his repulsors and any missiles he's built into the suit. The large man with the red cape has some sort of electrical charge he can shoot from that hammer he's using." She swallowed, hand tightening enough on her notebook to crinkle the pages. "And Will has those arrows."

Benji spun his laptop to face Ethan. "As far as I can tell, this was recorded about half an hour ago."

With the rundown the two had just given him, it was easy to determine that the reason some of those hostiles were veering off suddenly or exploding in balls of flame was arrows hitting volatile materials in the sleds – or the arrows themselves were explosive – and that meant it had to be Brandt they were converging on.

Benji had been correct; there _wasn't_ much he had been able to do with footage from a weather camera. Ethan was obscurely grateful for that fact, even as the agent in him cursed the lack of clear details. He had enough nightmares. He didn't need to add seeing a teammate blown up by aliens to the list.

"Is…was that…" Ethan cleared his throat, and brutally throttled down the reactions that were fighting to get out. He could not run off half-cocked. He needed _facts_ and a plan of action. Depending on the type of building that was, there could have been cover for Brandt to duck behind or under. He might have even managed to get back through the roof access door. It wasn't like he could have missed them coming for him. Brandt wasn't an idiot. He knew heroic last stands were a thing of movies, not real life. He'd have been looking for a way out, some way to minimize the damage.

And Brandt was _very_ good at spotting the small things that could make or break a mission. If there had been a way to avoid being killed in that explosion, he found it.

"We don't know. Not for certain," Benji answered his half-asked question. "I'm still trying to find independent confirmation, and I'm trying to find out what SHIELD has to do with all this, but…" Benji spread his hands, expression a mix of rueful and frustrated.

Ethan took a deep breath in and let it out slowly. Then he squared his shoulders and met Jane and Benji's gazes in turn. "Pack what you need to blend into the relief efforts in New York and make sure you're both armed. Whatever this is, it'll be over by the time we get there." Hopefully, it would be over with a victory for humanity. Ethan didn't really want to think about the alternative. He felt his mind settling into mission mode, assimilating the information they had and twisting it into something he could _use_ to get his agent back. "The IMF is determined that we not poke our noses into Brandt's missions outside of this team, and this most recent one in particular." Ethan held up a hand to stop Jane's question before it could start. "I'll tell you both more on the way. But if we don't want to get drafted into something that will make it impossible to go find Brandt, we have to be in the wind before the orders come down."

Jane nodded solemnly. "So we're doing this without the IMF's support."

Ethan met her gaze calmly. "Yes."

Benji broke the tense silence with a slightly shaky laugh. "Well, it's not like it can be as bad as the _last_ time we did that, can it?"

Ethan blinked, and felt a small smile spread across his face as Jane giggled quietly.

Yeah, how much worse _could _it get than that first mission? Ethan was fairly certain this would be _weirder_ than their first mission – there were _aliens_ invading New York! - but he doubted it could be more of a disaster.

* * *

**A/N:** I applaud all authors who can write Ethan well. I was arguing with him and myself all throughout his section. I have a feeling he is going to be a challenge for me.


	4. On the Move

A/N: This is a bit later than I intended, but last minute brainstorms do that to authors. This is much better than it would have been, so I'm not gonna be sorry about it, either. :P

* * *

The rolling motion of the car, combined with the quiet _click-clack-click_ of Benji's typing, was oddly soothing. Jane shifted in her seat, tilting her head to see better out of the window. The sweeping view of the mountains she was treated to was breathtaking, reminding her why mountainous areas had always been her favorite vacation spots from the time she had been a little girl. And there was just always _something_ about the Rocky Mountains that seemed…untamed, maybe, but definitely wild. It wasn't the same as the quiet peacefulness of the Appalachians, more rugged and _present_ than anything in the eastern areas of the country. All of the ranges in the western part of the country were like that, and Jane loved it because it settled her to look out her window and see the strong, rugged mountains standing silent guard over her, that unnamed quality daring any human danger to stand against them.

It was one of the reasons she had chosen to look for a new apartment in Seattle once the lease on her old one had run out. She'd enjoyed living in New York, and it was central to one of the IMF's main offices, which was convenient for her work, but…Seattle was quickly becoming one of her favorite cities. It had sentimental value to her, being the city in which so many of her team's post-mission get-togethers happened, but it was also beautiful in its own right. Jane had made a habit of learning the rhythms and workings of any city she ended up in on a frequent basis, and Seattle just called to her on some level.

It might have been the mountain ranges – the Olympic Mountains to the west and the Cascade Range to the east – or it might have been the sense of safety she now associated with it, but Jane didn't particularly care which it was. Seattle was just as much home to her as New York had ever been and when she'd had to make a choice about renewing her lease, or looking for another place…well. It hadn't really been a choice. Her life had been steadily relocating west even before then; it only made sense to move out to the city she was coming to love. It hadn't been like it affected her missions. The only thing that had had to change was the office she reported to for re-certifications and pre- and post-mission briefs.

_"All the way across the country though, Jane? That's not a small move."_

_Jane laughed at Will's incredulous tone, carried clearly to her ear despite the slightly scratchy connection of their phones. "Smaller than some moves we've made." She leaned back against the wall of her half-packed apartment, surveying her work with satisfaction. "And less dangerous."_

_A startled bark of laughter answered her and Jane couldn't help the smile that widened on her face. "That's true," Will said as he caught his breath. "Did you have a place picked out yet?"_

_"Not quite. I know what area I want to live in, but I haven't found anything suitable yet." Jane shifted her weight to one foot, and rested the other against the wall behind her, forming a triangle of space between her bent knee and the wall. "Do you think you could help me find something, Will?"_

_"When are you planning on doing the search?" her team mate asked, and she heard rustling pages in the background. "I have…hmm…if I…yeah. Yeah, I can do that…"_

_Long familiar with Will's habit of talking to himself – and whoever or whatever was in the immediate area - while he thought, Jane spoke right over him. _

_"I was thinking I'd do it after my first aid recertification next week. I'll be staying on base anyway for that, so someplace to sleep and shower won't be an issue and I doubt they'll mind if I take a few extra days afterwards. I already have a list of what I want and what I _need_, so it should be relatively quick."_

_"I keep telling you guys that my lists are useful. Glad to see _someone_ was paying attention," Will shot back without heat and Jane laughed again. _

_"Keep dreaming, little boy," she teased. "Pure coincidence."_

_Will blew a raspberry down the line at her._

"Jane?"

Jerking, Jane sat up straighter, turning her head to regard Ethan. He was splitting his attention between the road and her, while Benji leaned over the arm rest in the middle of the front seats to regard her curiously.

"Yes?"

Benji's eyes were worried as he squinted at her. "Are you alright? We've been trying to get your attention for a few minutes now. You weren't asleep, but you weren't answering, either."

Jane sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "I'm fine. Just…worried and confused. I was thinking about the last time I spoke to Will."

"We're all confused," Ethan offered quietly, his eyes returning to the road. "Nothing about this situation makes sense, and it probably won't until we find Brandt."

"Do we even know where to start? Besides New York, I mean," Jane stared out of the windshield, trying not to let the image of that explosion superimpose itself over the mountains. Will was _fine._ He was _not_ dead; not until she saw the body. "We know the battle's over now." And just what had happened to make every invading alien and those flying whale ships just _collapse_ she really wanted to know. "Will definitely won't stay in one spot just waiting for us to get there."

"SHIELD."

Jane blinked, and felt Benji shift next to her so he could join in her incredulous stare. "SHIELD?" Benji echoed.

Ethan shrugged. "They're the ones who commandeered him for whatever that project was. It had to have been them that got him involved in the fight against the aliens in New York. SHIELD has the answers we need, so we start with them."

Jane heard Will's voice in her head, a different landscape zipping by a battered Jeep's windows. _"Burj Khalifa. It's the tallest building in the world, and you want to alter its infrastructure with the hopes of convincing two people they've had a meeting which actually really…never happened."_

"And just _how_ are we going to get SHIELD to be any more forthcoming than IMF was?" Benji demanded.

"We don't need to talk to them to access their servers."

Jane frowned at Ethan. "No, we can't. We don't have a user name or password to even get ON their system in the first place."

Ethan's _I've got a plan_ grin crept onto his face, seemingly despite his control, because it was twitching as if he didn't want to let it out. "No, but Benji has access to IMF's and thus to Brandt's records. And the files Brandt keeps on our servers."

Benji let out a long _ooohhh_ of comprehension. "If he's the liaison for SHIELD, he's got access to their servers in a limited fashion. That information has to be in his files somewhere. Not his password, obviously, but-"

And Jane was suddenly there with them. "-there has to be a way for IMF to interface with SHIELD's servers, so Will doesn't have to go to them everytime something needs done. Especially since that's how the director had to get confirmation of life for Ethan. Will would have recorded contact information, web addresses, emails…"

"Exactly," Ethan confirmed. Dark eyes glanced over at Benji, eyebrows raised. "How long do you think you need, Benji?"

Jane didn't need to see her team mate's face to be aware of the feral grin that would be spreading on it.

"I'll have us an in by the time we reach Idaho. Just don't crash."

* * *

While Jane and Ethan turned their attention to ironing out their strategy once they reached New York – and Benji would be glad if they could hop a flight somewhere in here, two days or more in a car this size was going to get cramped _fast_ – Benji settled into the back seat again, zeroing his attention to his laptop.

Accessing Will's files without drawing attention to himself wasn't exactly hard, but it did take a bit of finagling, and while Benji waited for his program to run its course, he had time to think over what Ethan had told Jane and him as they set out from Seattle.

_"Like I told you two back at Benji's place, the IMF does not want us looking into Brandt's missions outside of this team. Most of my conversation with the director revolved around that." Ethan's hands clenched on the steering wheel, and Jane and Benji exchanged worried looks. How bad had that meeting been? "I was reminded that Brandt is an agent for the IMF before he's a member of our team, and that I knew that when I picked him for our team."_

_"Shouldn't that mean they're just as curious about what he's doing in New York with a bow and arrows, though?" Benji asked, feeling his eyebrows climb towards his hairline. Ethan shook his head, still tense._

_"Apparently not. I mentioned the footage out of New York, and got lectured about leaping to conclusions and trying to do an analyst's job."_

_Jane let out a low humming sound. "It almost sounds like they've got something against Will."_

_Ethan switched lanes without signaling, causing a scattering of honking horns that he ignored. Benji braced himself with one foot on the back of Ethan's seat and a hand on the ceiling, making sure his laptop didn't go sliding off the seat with the other._

_"I don't think it's the entire IMF, just the brass." Ethan glanced over to Jane. "You mentioned the facility that he was helping set up is a crater now. I didn't know that until I reminded the director that Brandt should have been somewhere on _this_ coast, setting up an IMF installation, not on the eastern, shooting aliens with archaic weaponry." Ethan's head cocked, the same way Benji was familiar with when his team leader stared at intel that didn't match up during missions. "I must have surprised him, because he blurted that it wasn't _our_ installation, and 'thank God for that' before he realized what he said."_

_Benji didn't bother hiding the amusement in his voice. "And you refused to leave until he explained."_

_Ethan flashed a grin Benji's way in the rearview mirror. "I do have a reputation for being stubborn."_

_Benji was fairly certain Jane's cough hid the words _and destructive_ but Ethan had chosen that moment to dart around another couple cars that weren't moving fast enough for him, so it was hard to hear over the honking._

_"Anyway," Ethan continued, as blithely as if he hadn't just infuriated several of the other drivers on the highway. "I got him to confirm that Brandt was alive, but he wouldn't tell me _why_ he was liaising with SHIELD. Whatever it is, _that _is the reason Brandt got pulled into this thing in New York."_

Benji blinked his way back to the present as his computer blipped at him, indicating it was finished running the program. With a determined frown, he started opening files and copying what looked like it might be useful to his own hard drive. He could only stay under the radar for so long, even with his program. Someone would notice that their Chief Analyst's files were being hacked eventually, and take measures to stop it. Benji needed to be done before anyone thought to look.

Considering how pissed off Ethan had probably made the director, Benji didn't figure he had very much time to work with.

_"I mean, who even knew the guy was that territorial about his plants?!" Benji exclaimed, waving his hands emphatically to emphasize his point. "I swear it's like Ethan has some sort of hidden talent for finding people's buttons and _stomping all over them!"

_Sitting next to him at the bar, Will snorted into his drink, eyes sparkling with laughter. "I don't think it's as hidden as all that, Benji."_

_"It's bloody _annoying_ is what it is! If I'd had just two more minutes – _two, _Will! – I'd have _had_ that code cracked and we'd have been in without _any _of the crazy shit we ended up having to pull!"_

_Will downed the last of his drink and shrugged with equanimity. "I've learned something since joining this team. You know what it is?"_

_Benji eyed his friend warily. This tone of voice in Will usually meant the snark was about to start flying and Benji wasn't entirely certain it would be aimed at someone other than him. He really wasn't in the mood to trade barbs with Will right now. "What?"_

_A small smirk tugged one corner of Will's mouth upwards. "When working with Ethan Hunt, the best plan is to assume all of your plans have half the time you estimate and none of the breathing room you hope for. Otherwise, you end up scrambling along behind him, trying not to trip and get left behind."_

_Snorting laughter erupted before Benji could contain it, and he and Will ended up leaning on each other as they laughed and laughed until the bartender came over to ask if they were all right._

"Half the time and none of the breathing room," Benji whispered to himself, a smile tugging at his mouth even as he worked, moving with the rocking motion of the speeding car as Ethan pushed the speed limit as much as he dared in this mountainous terrain. Jane's voice drifted into his ears, speaking of timelines and possibilities and approaches.

"-really be much easier to just work the lost relative angle, he's a cousin recently moved to New York, we lost contact, all that. Once we get that established, we can move on Stark-"

It wasn't as if Benji had assumed they would be avoiding Stark in this mess. The man was the only recognizable figure of the six who had battled the aliens. _How_ they would get to the man without raising suspicions, though…

_Will, I think you were onto something, there. Especially if Ethan and Stark end up in the same room with each other!_

Benji couldn't help but laugh at the mental image, and Ethan's curious question from the front only made him laugh harder. This would be something to share with Will over drinks when this mess was over.

Because they _would_ find their missing - _not _dead. Not unless they found the body - team mate; Benji was sure of it, because he and Ethan and Jane would _make_ it so. After that first mission together, everything else had seemed like a milk run, and finding one person, even in the midst of the teeming chaos that would be New York?

It wouldn't faze Benji's team one little bit.


	5. Regrouping and Attacking

**A/N1:** So, timelines and pacing were major issues as I tried to write this, and then reality whapped me upside the head about the time difference between the East and West Coasts, so that was fun! In other news, I've finally managed to get an Avenger into the story. Tony is immensely fun to write.

* * *

Something was not right, here. Something was just…it was off, and if Benji just had more information he could figure out what it was. He'd gotten all of Will's files – the ones that looked useful, anyway. He didn't need after-action reports on the missions they'd run together, after all. – downloaded faster than he'd expected, and quickly disconnected from the IMF's servers. And now, poking through the file Will had labeled "Interagency Cooperation: Contacts," he _knew_ something was wrong.

Start over. Go back to the top and look again.

**_Strategic Homeland Intervention and Enforcement Logistics Division (SHIELD)_**

_ Main Contact: Coulson, P._

_ Secondary: Sitwell, J._

_In case of emergency, immediately contact Hill, M. or Fury, N. through secured line (access code clearance level 7). Further instructions relayed as necessary._

**_Impossible Missions Force (IMF):_**

_ Main Contact, NY Office: Kriffson, O._

_ Secondary, NY Office: Briesland, I._

_ Main Contact, Chicago: Moore, E._

_ Secondary, Chicago: Oland, T._

_ Main Contact, Miami: Alexander, H._

_ Secondary, Miami: Flores, W._

_ Main Contact, Austin: Pares, B._

_ Secondary, Austin: Grippen, P._

_ Main Contact, Seattle: Greiss, L._

_ Secondary, Seattle: Shimore, S._

_ In case of emergency, immediately contact Kriffson, O. or Greiss, L. through secured line (clearance code alpha). Further instructions relayed as necessary._

Benji stared at the screen, scrolled up and down the document again to make sure he hadn't missed something, and then stared some more.

_Where are the numbers? Emails? Bloody Morse Code, something…_how_ do you contact these people, Will? Hell, how do you contact _our_ people if you don't have the numbers written somewhere, I don't care how good your memory is, there are too many numbers to memorize all of them._

Benji stared at the contacts for SHIELD again, brow furrowing. Who were Hill and Fury? Kriffson and Greiss ran the two IMF offices with the most traffic and they were the directors with the most seniority, so those emergency contacts made sense. In a situation that could be classified as an emergency by the IMF, you'd want someone who could pull strings and throw around resources without asking permission. But there weren't even _titles_ attached to any of the SHIELD contacts, so all Benji had was supposition that those names followed the same basic guideline Will seemed to have followed for the IMF.

Well, to be fair, Will hadn't listed the titles for any of the IMF agents, either, but still, you would think that would be important.

_Okay, so, think, Benji. Will's an agent for the IMF. And Ethan didn't know he was in Croatia until _after_ Dubai._

No matter how good an actor Ethan was, he had always been a little _off_ when he had to act about anything to do with Julia. Benji didn't know what they'd said to each other, after that first post-mission get-together in Seattle, but whatever it was, it had settled Will's nerves and smoothed out Ethan's edges. The two of them had already worked together easily, but it was almost _scary_ how well they did with each other after that. Which had made that first mission as an official team a lot easier than it otherwise would have been, because having half their team dancing around each other would have been awkward.

_Which means Will is a sneaky bastard, and he's not just an IMF agent, he's the liaison for SHIELD. So he's _got_ to have picked some things up from being around them. So how would a government agent hide information on his own organizations servers?_

Benji grinned, and mouthed along with Will's voice playing in his head.

_"The best way to hide anything is not to put it in plain sight, but make it part of something _else _that _is_ in plain sight. People look for the object as a whole, not that object as part of _another _whole."_

Scanning through the files as a whole again, Benji started looking for something that Will could have included numbers or email addresses in, without it looking odd. Now that he had a fair idea of what he was looking for, it wasn't all that hard.

_Black Market Contacts: North America_

A quick click had him scrolling through information, numbers for each name and more emails than not, until he found a set of familiar initials for a contact listed under "New Mexico".

_Carson, P. _

The initials combined with the location of Will's last known assignment clinched it in the agent's mind. Benji let out a soft _ha_ of accomplishment, and rolled his head side to side to stretch the cramped muscles. Then he settled in to figure out how to hack into SHIELD from the info he could get from the email of one "Mr. Carson".

* * *

Jane gratefully stretched as she exited the car, some ten hours after they had left Seattle, feeling her spine creak and hearing it crack as she did so. She and Ethan had gone over their plan at least a dozen times since they set out, covering every contingency they could think of, everything that could go wrong, and how to adapt if it did.

_"Ultimately, we're not _going_ to know exactly how we'll play this until we know how Brandt's tied into this mess. When Benji can get us that information, we'll make final plans, but for now-"_

_Jane sighed, rubbing at her eyes with tired hands. "We have to play it by ear."_

_Ethan didn't respond, but then, he didn't need to._

Eyeing the small motel they had stopped at without enthusiasm, Jane gritted her teeth and turned sharply to retrieve her bag from the trunk. She might not _like_ the idea of stopping for the night, not when they were still so far from New York, but they needed at least a few hours of sleep, all three of them. She and Ethan would be doing the majority of the driving unless the no fly ban was lifted in the next two days – which wasn't likely – and Benji might be _able _to work on his end while in a moving car, but experience had taught all of them that it was easier for Benji to concentrate either in the back of one of the surveillance vans IMF provided, or in a quiet room with at least one desk to sprawl his equipment all over.

Given that they _needed_ the information Benji was after, stopping for the night made the most sense out of any of their options. Ethan and Jane could continue making plans and back-up plans, and each catch some sleep so they could spell each other on their marathon drive cross-country and Benji could do some work not cramped into the back seat of the car and also get some shut eye.

None of that meant that being in one place for more than two hours felt like a failure to Jane. She hadn't even wondered if something was wrong when Will hadn't called her back like he'd promised to after their last conversation, with a definite time and place to meet. She had just assumed he'd been caught up in the installation he was setting up, and maybe that had been true, at the start…

But she hadn't even wondered, too used to the secrecy that her job demanded, too used to sitting on her own curiosity for her continued sanity when it came to what Will was doing without them, without backup that he trusted.

And now there was a crater in the ground in New Mexico, and her teammate might or might not be lying dead on a New York street, buried in a pile of rubble after that explosion took out his rooftop position and –

"Jane."

She jumped, slightly, turning to see Ethan watching her over the car's roof, understanding softening his sharp gaze. She nodded slightly at him, and made her way to the lobby and the front desk to secure some rooms for them while Ethan bent to pry Benji out of the car and away from his data gathering/hacking.

Jane wasn't entirely sure which he was doing right now. Benji had exclaimed triumphantly at somewhere around the two hour mark, and then proceeded to mumble to himself and the computer about _sneaky bastards_ and _won't fool me_. She presumed that meant he'd managed to find a way into SHIELD's servers, but if that meant he'd actually managed it Jane didn't know.

She was fairly certain he hadn't. Benji would not be quiet after hacking the premiere spy organization in the United States. For all Jane knew, they were the best in the world. It wasn't like SHIELD went around advertising itself.

Shaking herself out of her thoughts, Jane smiled at the desk clerk. "I need two rooms for one night, please."

It was _such_ a pain maintaining a normal appearance, but one woman rooming with two men who were obviously not her relatives would raise comment and they did _not_ need to make it any easier for IMF to track them down and try to order them away from Will.

* * *

Ethan watched Jane march towards the front entrance of the motel and sighed. Not knowing what was going on with Brandt was tearing at his team, tearing at him, but it seemed to be wearing on Jane the most. Not having anything tangible to contribute to their efforts beyond rehashing plan after plan was making her more and more tense. They'd kept the radio tuned to a news station all throughout their drive, but had turned it down low when it became clear no new information was going to be available for a while. It was almost midnight in Montana, and it was even later on the east coast, so it wasn't as if they were really losing any time by stopping, but it _felt_ like they were. They'd all be up and on the move again in six hours at the most, but staying in one place, staying _still_…it wasn't what Jane wanted to do and to be honest, Ethan didn't want to either. They had to stop, to regroup and make sure they could reach New York in any fit state to begin the search for Brandt. It was logical; the sane thing to do.

It was maddening.

Ethan shook his head sharply and opened the driver's side rear door, leaning in slightly to catch Benji's attention.

The former tech turned agent was still typing on his laptop, brows furrowed and a slightly manic light in his eyes. Ethan highly doubted that Benji had even noticed they had stopped.

"Benji."

The typing continued. Ethan felt a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

"Benji."

Still nothing. Ethan shook his head, and waited until Benji paused in his typing, probably considering his next move, and snatched the laptop away.

"HEY!"

Ethan grinned as Benji tumbled out of the car after him, glaring furiously. "What the hell, Ethan? I need that, give it back. _You_ were the one with the brilliant idea for me to hack the Fort Knox of spies, _give it back._ I was onto something there-"

Ethan watched as Benji's situational awareness finally succeeded in penetrating the tech fog clouding his brain. "We're stopping for some rest. Food and sleep," he filled in before his team mate could ask. "Jane and I need to get some decent rest to make it to New York non-stop after this, and _you_ need food and a better space to work in than the back seat of the car."

Handing the laptop back, Ethan turned to get his own bag out of the trunk, handing Benji's over when the other man came back for it, laptop already tucked away in its own special bag. Worried eyes sought out Ethan's and he met the other man's gaze head on.

"Are you sure stopping is a good idea?" Benji asked. "Time's essential right now, and I _can_ work in the car the whole way, I don't _need_ a stationary post to do this."

Ethan nodded. "I know. But you work better with one, or with an IMF van and all that equipment. Our plan is going to hinge on what you find out, Benji. Getting you what you need to do that, as quickly as possible, helps everyone." He shut the trunk with a slam, and let his hands rest on the lid of the trunk for just a moment, letting the tension he was trying to hold in flow through his grip into the unyielding metal. "We won't be any help to Brandt if we go off in the wrong direction because we didn't bother getting the right intel first. He'd be the first one to call us all idiots, and he'd be right." Ethan drew a deep breath and looked back up at Benji. "So, we're going to eat, and Jane and I will sleep for a few hours while you do your hacking, and then _you_ will get some sleep while Jane and I incorporate that into our plans. We'll be on the road again in six hours, maximum. But we _have_ to take this time, so we do this _right_."

Benji sighed, and nodded. "Alright, then," he conceded with an unhappy frown, but he turned to enter the motel and Ethan followed close on his heels.

* * *

"What've we got, Pep?" Tony called over his shoulder as he adjusted his tie, eyeing his reflection critically in the mirror. Ah, the wonders of makeup. You couldn't even see the gashes and bruises he'd come away with despite the suit unless you were up close and personal, which none of the press would be. "Please tell me I get to make fun of someone, today. I have been good for the last _two _press conferences I've been forced to attend, tell me that, I don't know, _People_ got on the short list or something so I can mock them."

"No mocking the press, Tony. They'll just publish that, too, and it won't solve any of our problems."

Tony snorted as he finished with his tie and turned to pin the woman who was tapping away on a StarkPad by the door with a look. She hadn't even looked up as he rambled to her. She knew him far too well.

"Be honest, Pepper," he said, strolling towards her with his hands in his pockets, grin sharp and dangerous, already feeling his "meet the press" mask slipping into place. There were times he hated having grown up in the spotlight, and there were times he was almost pathetically grateful. It had at least taught him to be a great actor when there were cameras around. "We always have problems with the press, it is just a matter of scale."

Pepper's lips twitched and Tony's grin became self-satisfied and a bit softer. She looked up, blue eyes dancing. "Just try not to make _more_ problems then." She reached out to him and adjusted the collar on his shirt. "You know they're going to ask about the others. Don't let them side-track you. Can you stick with the plan this time, please?"

Tony gave her a sheepish grin, remembering another pre-press conference meeting, and a discarded cover story. "Not just me this time, Pep. I think Romanov alone would string me up if I said anything else other than the party line."

Not that they'd gotten one beyond _lay low for a while_, which, really? SHIELD should know the press didn't _do_ laying low. They were going to come up with a lot worse things than the truth if someone didn't give them _something._ Getting rid of Loki from Central Park had made sense. It had the space, and was not on SHIELD property, so Fury could plausibly claim he hadn't know what they were doing in time to stop them, but it had _not _been private in any sense of the word. Tony was fairly certain that if there weren't already YouTube videos of all of his team members – captured during the panic and chaos of yesterday's battle – then there certainly were of today's send-off. And since SHIELD didn't seem to acknowledge that the press could be a threat, it fell to Tony to do something about it.

So what else was new? He was always picking up messes of some sort. Just lately, more of them hadn't been of his own making. He wasn't sure if that was Pepper's fault, or just a result of him finally accepting responsibility for his actions.

Maybe both.

"Mr. Stark? We're ready whenever you are."

Tony looked over at the woman who had leaned into the doorway, the Stark Industries logo on her id badge catching the light. It refracted off the plastic, creating a bright, sparkling point of light for just a moment before it moved with its owner.

_Massive ships, far more than they could fight, with _hundreds,_ maybe _thousands_, more aliens than they could kill. _

_A single white point in the black, exploding into bursts of orange and red and bright, brilliant white and he was falling, but it was okay now. He'd gotten the bastards where it hurt most._

"Tony?"

Blinking, Tony looked down into Pepper's worried face and forced a smile for her. "Yeah? Did I miss anything good?"

Exasperation flirted briefly with her features before Pepper sighed. "Tony, are you sure you're up for this right now? It's barely been a day-"

"And the press gets more inventive the more time they have. We all know that, Pepper." He set his hands on her shoulders, squeezing gently. "Relief at not being dead will only last so long, and then the damage is going to really register. If we don't head them off at the pass, they're going to do worse than anyone wants to see. And I, for one, do not want to see what Fury's backup plan is for redeeming the Avengers' public image. It probably involves assassinations."

That got him a weak smile that morphed into her professional smile as she straightened, shaking off his hands. "Then let's go," she told him.

Tony caught her hand as they moved through the doors, and she squeezed as the cameras started flashing.

* * *

**A/N2:** So, unfortunately you guys will not get a new chapter for at least a couple weeks, because I am going on vacation this week. I'll resume replying to reviews after I get back, but I'll have little to no internet access until Friday. I love all your reviews, and I will respond to those I can, but not before the weekend.


	6. Where We Go From Here

**A/N1:** I am slightly put out by the fact that ff net messed up the formatting I had for Will's contact documents in the last chapter. If you guys get another update notice, it's cause I'm trying to fix it. (It worked right on AO3, dang it!) In other news, Clint's here! Go, read!

* * *

"Clint?"

Natasha restrained the urge to glance over at the passenger side of the car. She _knew_ her partner wasn't any more injured than some sprained muscles and scrapes and bruises. Looking at him wasn't going to change that, in either direction, but it _would_ make him irritable.

"I _told_ you, I don't _care_ where we go, I just want out of this city."

Well,_ more_ irritable. If she weren't already intimately familiar with the issues he was fighting in his head right now, she'd be tempted to punch him in the head again.

Instead, she sighed, and refused to let her hands tighten on the wheel as she navigated the maze of rubble and construction and debris that had been New York's streets. "I know you don't, but I'm not choosing your cover for you. Where we go affects it. _Pick something._"

There was an inarticulate mumble from her right, and some of the tension riding between her shoulder blades diminished. Not all of it, but…a small portion. A grumbling Clint was a functioning Clint.

So long as she could _keep_ him functioning until they reached safety, Natasha was fairly certain she could guide him through the first shaky steps towards reclaiming his sense of self. As much as she trusted that Sitwell knew how to do his job well, and that he would side with them over the WSC…well, he wasn't Coulson. He'd done remarkably well keeping up with the two of them during the chaos of the battle for New York. Natasha would remain forever impressed that he had anticipated how fast she and Clint would move after her partner woke as himself again. The pain pills he'd stashed in Clint's field suit had been a large part of the reason he'd done so well in that battle after everything he'd already gone through.

She didn't particularly care if his aim was still almost supernatural under adverse conditions, it was _better_ when he wasn't fighting a migraine from having his mind raped and his head rammed into a metal pole then punched with all the force she could muster.

Honestly, Natasha wasn't so sure that the _cognitive recalibration_ had much of anything to do with how Clint had broken free of Loki. The god had shown himself to have the tendency to underestimate mere humans time and again. Clint had been fighting the control since the first moment he was taken. All that he had needed was a chance, an opening to exploit.

She'd reviewed the tapes, both of her fight with Clint, and of Coulson's confrontation with Loki. She still wasn't sure if she had rammed Clint's head into the railing before Coulson had shot Loki with the Phase 2 canon. In the end, Natasha supposed there wasn't much difference to before or after. Whether it had been her actions, or Coulson's, or a combination, Clint had been granted the opportunity he needed to claw enough control back to _stop_ fighting her.

And no matter how much every agent at SHIELD knew that there were some situations where you just had to make the best of bad options, no one would be especially happy to see Clint right at this moment. Given a few weeks for the immediacy of the battle to fade, and the pain of friends lost to recede slightly, they would realize it wasn't his fault. Right now, though…

No, right now, they needed to disappear. They had to fall off SHIELD's radar and quickly. Sitwell had helped with that, blandly handing her two duffle bags that usually lived in their respective on base quarters in New York, already – always – packed and ready to go.

"_Enjoy your vacation, Agent Romanov. Don't let him try any more stunts until the effects of the concussion wear off."_

So, as much as she wished it were Coulson who had their backs right now, Sitwell was doing an admirable job of taking up that slack. Until Director Fury could calm the Council down, or distract them with something else, she and Clint, and the rest of the rag-tag team that had formed, needed to get out of the spot-light.

For Clint and her, it wouldn't be hard. They were both accustomed to disappearing, sometimes in plain sight. Natasha had seen Clint transform himself time and again with a change of posture, accent, clothing, attitude – any and all the combinations he needed –so that someone he had spoken to not an hour earlier didn't recognize him beyond a vague _you seem familiar_. And while for Clint it was always an effort on some level, Natasha herself had been _trained _to do the same, with even more deadly effect.

She had no hopes of Stark even _attempting_ the same, though his injuries might make Pepper keep him confined to the Tower for a day or so. Dr. Banner's presence might help there as well. Stark had taken to the man who became the Hulk like nothing else Natasha had observed. Maybe having to temper his actions to keep his new friend out of trouble would help, though Natasha doubted it.

She also doubted Dr. Banner would stay in the country for much longer. Some wounds ran too deeply to be fixed by fearless camaraderie and shameless offers of material objects.

Thor, of course, was no longer even on the planet, having taken Loki back to Asgard to face his punishment just that morning. It was perhaps uncharitable to wish him not to return, when he had done so much to help them fight off the Chitauri, but Natasha's primary concern right now was her partner. Clint did not need reminders of Loki and all that had happened since the madman's arrival on Earth. There would be enough of them to face without that.

As for the good Captain Rogers, he was doing much the same as she and Clint would. Getting out of the city, with no firm destination in mind beyond _not New York_. He'd expressed an interest in seeing how the rest of the country had changed since he'd woken from the ice, and she had grabbed the opportunity for distraction and had Clint help her throw together some clothing that would help the super soldier blend into the crowds better than his own clothing did. However comfortable he felt in the clothing he chose for himself, it fit better on men decades his senior in years lived, even if he _should be_ that same age. She wondered, sometimes, how he was handling the oddity of being effectively cut off from his own generation so well.

That task had kept them occupied long enough for exhaustion to finally claim her partner, dragging him down into a deep, dreamless sleep. Natasha didn't hope she could exhaust him that well again – the Chitauri had done that, at least, for good. Fighting an invading army was _terrifyingly_ exhausting. Tonight would be the first of a long series of difficult ones, she knew, but this was nothing they hadn't dealt with before on lesser levels. Loki's words drifted through her mind.

"_Your ledger is dripping, it's_ gushing_ red, and you think saving a man no more virtuous than yourself will change anything?"_

Both of them had done things in their pasts they were not proud of, true enough. But the difference, the thing Loki could not see, was that as horrible as their pasts were, Clint and she had never done those things because they _enjoyed_ them. They had made the choices they did because those decisions were the best they could make at the time, for themselves, with the information at hand. It didn't absolve them of the wrong they had done, but it explained it. Their actions of the _present_ worked to balance their ledgers, bit by little bit.

It was something Coulson had spent a long time convincing both of them of, and Natasha refused to let Loki cause either one of them to backslide in the progress the man had made.

Finally giving in to the urge to glance at her partner – slumped moodily against the door, glaring at the buildings they passed - Natasha admitted privately, silently, to herself that it might be harder for Clint than for her, for perhaps the first time in their long partnership.

* * *

Clint could feel Natasha pointedly _not_ watching him, but he refused to give her the satisfaction of acknowledging the silent worry. He knew she was trying to get him to lay claim to his own actions again, to build a base against Loki's invasion of his mind, his free will. It was even something he knew was a good idea, but right now, Clint wanted nothing to do with it.

He was still exhausted, even after sleeping without dreams – and thank whatever higher power existed for that! – for nearly six solid hours before being bullied into Natasha's car to witness Loki's departure to a well-deserved punishment.

Clint hoped it was a severe one. Involving damp dungeons and magic cancelling chains or whatever the equivalent was in Asgard. Not like he really had any real knowledge of the place to go off of.

But now, curled into a tight ball in the passenger seat, watching the city around him become gradually more intact as they traveled further from the epicenter of the attack yesterday, Clint just wanted to retreat into silence and not have to _think_ about anything that had happened. Because then he could ignore what he had done to his own people, could forget that he had turned his gun on the director, nearly brought down the Helicarrier, tried to _kill_ Natasha, and that Coulson was…that Phil was…

Biting down on the inside of his cheek to stop the sound that wanted to claw its way out of his throat – Clint wasn't sure if it would have been a sob or a scream and didn't particularly want to find out – the archer curled tighter into the door, and squeezed his eyes shut. He needed something to distract himself with. Something not connected to New York, or the Avengers, or aliens or crazy scientists or super soldiers or _anything_ to do with the past week at all –

"_So…middle of nowhere, Ohio. Who would have thought this would be the ideal place for terrorists to recruit potential new recruits?"_

"_It's hardly the middle of nowhere, Benji," Jane said disapprovingly. "We're not _that_ far from Cleveland, actually."_

"_I don't care! There isn't a decently sized _town_ within twenty miles, the internet connection is horrific at best and this is the _middle of nowhere!"

_Will sighed and rolled his eyes as his teammates bickered with each other. He kept flipping through the pages of the marriage registries they'd gotten copies of from the local library, looking for the name they needed. It wasn't as if the necessity of hunting down paper records was new, it just usually didn't happen on missions that took place in technologically advanced countries. And no one had expected this one to lead back to their own shores – so to speak, anyway – so everyone was slightly tense and extremely frustrated. Will planned on terrifying some of the analysts back at headquarters for missing the domestic side of this issue so badly once this was over. _

_A _thunk_ interrupted the verbal spat, and Will looked up to grin briefly at his team leader, who had hurled his half-empty water bottle at the other two members of their team, impacting the wall exactly equi-distant between the two other agents. Ethan's expression practically spat fire as he struggled to contain his own frustration with the entire situation._

"_If you two aren't going to help us look for the contact's information, _shut up_ or take your fight elsewhere. Brandt and I are actually trying to get work done! We need this information and you aren't helping!"_

_Will looked back down hastily, biting his lip to keep the smart comment that wanted to come out from escaping his mouth. _

"The final sign of the apocalypse, my friends. Ethan Hunt advocating research over one of his insane plans."

_That was very much something _Clint_ would say. Not Will. He had to be Will here. _

_But, by _God_, it was so hard to hold it back when he snuck a glance at his red-faced teammates. He couldn't help the snicker that escaped, but that was okay, because Will had a snarky sense of humor that often poked fun at his team mates, but just as equally at himself. Snickering could be excused._

_He bent his head back to the book before the temptation to say something sarcastic overwhelmed his good sense, and felt the slight puff of displaced air as Benji flopped down on the motel bed with him; Jane had chosen to join Ethan on the couch, leaning to read over Ethan's shoulder, wordlessly offering the dented water bottle back. Ethan took it with a mostly incomprehensible grumble. _

"_Not one word, Will," Benji growled. Will laughed instead, and handed Benji a portion of his stack of pages.  
_

Back in the car, leaving New York, Clint smiled faintly, letting his memories take him away from any thought of the past week. There had always been something about the IMF agents that made up Will's team that settled Clint. Whether it was the way they all fit together, or just the fact that he enjoyed their company even when not on missions, Clint didn't really care.

There hadn't been a reason he should have accepted Ethan's offer of joining his team, from a mission standpoint. But there hadn't been a reason _not to_, either, and Clint had been more than fed up with Will-the-Analyst.

_His alias_ had been fed up with working behind a desk, because Will knew that the IMF had done some serious house cleaning and gotten rid of their potential and real security leaks. It was why Will existed, after all. And Croatia or not, Will had always wanted to do something more active than pull together random data points to point out the big picture that needed fixing to other people.

It always felt like a job half done, if he didn't see it through to the end. And that drove both Will _and_ Clint nuts.

_He didn't know what it was about the missions they were given, but they always seemed to end up doing _something_ insane. Will rubbed at the headache threatening behind his temples and regarded the mess of the files he had meticulously organized and labeled the night before. A small corner of his brain pointed out the irony of  
_him_ being the one mad about paperwork, not Coulson, but that was Clint, and Clint didn't exist here._

"_What happened?"_

_Jane looked up from where she had been watching Benji bandage the gash on her forearm, eyes not quite bleak, and not quite furious, but some combination of the two. _

"_Our intel wasn't accurate. They knew we weren't who we said we were, and they followed us back here. We didn't notice in time and they got in, and…" Her eyes shuttered even more and Will didn't press. He could guess easily enough. The rifled through files and the battered state he and Benji had found Jane in when they burst in, worried about the comm silence, were answer enough. _

"_Why take Ethan, though?" Benji wondered, securing the bandage and moving on to a scrape on Jane's elbow, gently cleaning it. "They already got the info they wanted." He tilted his head at Will's disordered files. A notable chunk of them was missing. _

_Will sighed again and shook his head. "Doesn't matter. What does is that we get Ethan back, and the files, before they do anything damaging with them." He scowled as he gathered up the scattered pieces of paper, irritated beyond measuring. "I _told_ them taking the paper copies was idiotic. I _told _them it would be noticed before the hacking would have!"_

_A snicker broke into his quiet rant. Will looked up to see Jane smiling at him, looking much more like herself all of a sudden. "Uh-oh," she said, eyes dancing, as Will stared at her. "_Somebody's_ gonna be in _trouble_," she sing-songed. _

_On second thought, maybe she wasn't back with them yet. She didn't usually get giggly if she was in shock, but this hadn't been quite normal, even for them, and – _

"_Heads're gonna roll," Benji agreed, grinning. "They didn't _listen_ to the Chief Analyst. Shame on them."_

…_oh. Will felt a laugh of his own fighting to get out, but he fought it down. He couldn't contain the grin he gave them, though, and he didn't try to. "Yeah," he agreed. "Just cause I'm in the field again doesn't mean my analysis skills are defunct." He slapped a hand down on the papers he'd stacked on the table. "If _I_ can see the flaws in this approach, while attempting not to get shot, someone at a desk in New York _damn well_ better be able to see the same."_

_Jane started snickering and Benji chortled as he finished cleaning and bandaging her wounds. Will relented and let a small snort escape, before he called them both to attention. They had to get Ethan back before he could go lecture the idiots in New York, after all. _

"Clint?"

The archer sighed as Natasha's voice drew him back to the present, but he still refused to look at her, staring unseeingly out of the passenger window.

"Richmond," he said flatly, picking a city at random. He liked the southern states anyway. "Let's go to Richmond."

"Alright," Natasha acquiesced.

Silence descended on the car again, but it wasn't as tense as it had been. Clint did feel a bit better for having made a decision. They had a goal now.

He could work with that.

* * *

**A/N2:** Thank you all for the lovely well-wishes on my vacation. I had a lovely time, and would have liked a longer one, but don't we all feel that way coming back from vacation? ;) Also, Natasha is...odd to write. I liked writing her, she's just...different, I guess. Not quite the challenge Ethan was (IS!), but still a bit of a challenge.


	7. More Questions than Answers

**A/N1: Lots of people this chapter. Also, this is late because I got hung up on writing a press conference that...didn't actually make it into this chapter, for pacing reasons. . Annoying. Things are moving along though...**

* * *

Jasper Sitwell rubbed at his eyes as he fell more than sat in his office chair. It was no wonder Phil had always been pissed off at the people who didn't fill out paperwork in a timely fashion; it made the job of handler at least three times as difficult.

He had the reports from everyone from the bridge crew to the medical personnel who had seen to or interacted with Barton or Romanov in the past seventy-two hours. The only people he _didn't_ have reports from – and actually really, _really_ needed them – were Barton and Romanov themselves.

The worst thing, though, was that it was his own fault. He'd practically shoved them out of the door with their go-bags, Director's Fury's ominous words about the Council looking for scape-goats to cover their stupid-ass mistakes ringing in his head.

The last thing he had wanted was for either of them to have to shoulder the guilt for something that _wasn't_ their fault, especially so soon after losing Phil. Barton, especially. Jasper knew better than most agents how resilient the archer was, considering he had worked with him several times before. But dealing with his guilt over the Loki incident on top of mourning a handler that had been one of his best friends? And then to have to try to defend himself from the asshats on the Council? From people supposedly on the same side as he was?

No, that might have broken him irreparably. Jasper hadn't been about to take that chance. Phil would have come back from the beyond the grave just to yell at him for breaking one of his best agents, to say nothing of what Romanov might have done if her partner had been charged with anything.

So here he was, instead of taking some well-deserved time off, trying to reconstruct enough of the battle from the footage available and the comm recordings to fill in what didn't need actual input from either agent. Jasper glared at his computer screen before he sighed and gulped down some of the coffee he'd had the foresight to get before he came in to their New York offices.

He could handle being on duty so soon after a massive, stress-filled mission if he had enough _decent_ caffeine to keep him going until he could in good conscience go collapse in his bed. The stuff in the break room did _not_ qualify.

"So," he mused, opening his email out of the vain hope that one of his two newest responsibilities had thought about their non-existent reports and filed them while he was catching a few hours of sleep extremely early this morning, after the worst of the potential security leaks had been contained behind a perimeter of SHIELD agents and NYPD and Army personnel, the latter two of which didn't actually know _what_ they were guarding, only that contamination was an issue. Caught up in his ruminations, he felt a chill go down his spine when he saw the single new notice in his inbox.

_Coulson, Phil_ it read, _Contingency Plans._

"You are a…were a…" Screw it, he still was, even beyond the grave. "You are a _bastard_, Phil. Some warning would have been nice."

Still muttering to himself, he opened the email, blinked at the opening line, and then snorted a laugh despite himself.

_Jasper, if you're finished calling me names, I'd like to get down to business, now._

Only Phil. Only Phil would set up a post-mortem email and then write it as if he were conducting the conversation in person. As if he were still _alive _to have this conversation.

_I have no way of knowing how I may die or when, so feel free to save the irrelevant portions of this email for a time when they _will_ be relevant. Because I assure you, everything I'm sending you is. I've kept this as up-to-date as time and missions have allowed me. In the attached documents you will find my notes on how to handle Agents Barton and Romanov, as well as some suggestions for getting _them_ to work with _you_. _

_Trust me, they're going to try your patience, and they're going to deliberately push your buttons. If you thought they were annoying to work with on a provisional basis…well. You'll see, if you haven't already. I trust you can do this well, though, Jasper, or I never would have approved your designation as their secondary handler. _

_The only thing you need to know right this moment, however, is that while I pulled Agent Romanov off her mission at the start of the Loki incident, Agent Barton still has an active alias. There are certain actions he _has_ to take in order to keep it up, or people will notice. If this thing blows up as big as I think it will, then you're going to need to do some damage control with the Impossible Missions Force. Hopefully, Barton will be able to help with that. _

_In the event that he's unconscious in Medical, or that we were unable to recover him, though, here's what you need to know._

Jasper read with a growing sense of disbelief. Of course his biggest problem wasn't the missing reports. It was the active alias that had just been blown sky high and the IMF team that was going to be demanding answers of SHIELD once they knew where to come.

His head thunked down onto his desktop, narrowly missing the keyboard. "I _hate_ being a handler. I never should have agreed to this."

Jasper let himself have a few moments to lament his life choices, and then he sat up again and started reading the documents and profiles Phil had arranged to be sent to him. He was going to need all the information he could get to handle _this_ mess.

* * *

"James, come listen to this! It's the most astonishing thing!"

Clint managed to suppress the flinch at Natasha's tone as he obediently turned to see what his partner had found to exclaim over. Or really, what _Shari_ had found.

He wasn't sure if having to assume a different name and identity right now was a good idea for his mental state, but they couldn't just go around using their _own_ names, and they couldn't just disappear into their rooms and not come out. People everywhere they went were hungry for news and the comfort of a group. Those who hid out _stood out_, and the media had enough ammo what with all the photos from the battle and this morning's prisoner transfer. Clint would not be surprised if some enterprising correspondent connected them to SHIELD. Hopefully it would die there, but it never paid to let your guard down.

Eyes round with what seemed a mix of astonishment and avid interest, Shari grabbed his hand and dragged him over to the counter of the small restaurant and bar the hotel they had stopped at boasted. _James_ stumbled along in her wake, surprised and not ready to be yanked around by his hand. The bartender didn't try to hide his smile very much, surveying the both of them with the superior air of someone who _knew_ something others didn't.

_Ah, so that's it, she's found the local king of gossip,_ Clint thought, safely hidden behind James' grumbling at his wife's rough handling.

"Tell him, Kyle, tell him!" Shari demanded, one stray curl escaping the handkerchief that kept the rest of her hair out of her face. James jerked his hand back, rubbing it and exchanging a rueful glance with Kyle the bartender.

"Well?" he asked, his accent firmly _farther South somewhere_. "Shari's about jerked my hand off, might as well hear what was so important."

"Well," Kyle returned, leaning on the bar and smiling, slow and wide. "I know you folks were in the air when all that crazy went down in New York," he began. James obligingly leaned forward, pulled in to the tale like a child during scary stories. "But we've been getting the most up to date information _here_, none of the crazy stuff the news wants you to believe. You see," and here Kyle leaned even farther over the bar, lowering his voice conspiratorially. _Shari_ bounced excitedly. _James_ firmly sat on Clint so he didn't call the man an idiot, and nodded eagerly.

"Yeah?"

"We've got a _contact_, up in New York. The owner's sister lives up there, some sort of scientist in Stark Industries. She was in the Tower when all this stuff went down."

Clint nearly lost James then, startled as he was by the information. Shari shifted next to him, pressing into his side, eyes still bright, but hand tight on his wrist, pressing a message into his flesh. _This_ was what she had wanted him to know.

_Warn Stark._

"She _saw_ this…those things?" James asked, disbelief and curiosity blending in his tone. His right arm twitched, looking to Kyle as if he had tried to bring it up on the bar and been prevented by Shari's renewed grip on his arm.

_We need information._

"She even saw the rest of those Avengers!"

_Shit._

Natasha-as-Shari let loose a mostly suppressed squeal of excitement. "Tell him about that…that giant!"

Kyle smiled indulgently at Natasha, and Clint had to suppress the smirk that suddenly wanted to be let out. This had all the hallmarks of a repeat of the Happy encounter Natasha had described to him after her assignment to Stark was done.

Only, sadly, they _didn't_ want to draw attention to themselves right now. So no throwing patronizing men over her shoulder or hip.

Her hand squeezed in rhythm on his wrist again, reading his mind with the ease of long practice.

_Can't. Unfortunate._

"They call it the Hulk, you know," Kyle confided, secure in his position as dispenser of knowledge. "She heard it. And it _talks._"

Clint remembered that. It had not, sadly enough, been the weirdest part of his day.

_"So, I'd totally just fly up there, but I think my thrusters gave out somewhere around the mesosphere, and also, not everyone can fly. So, walking it is."_

_Yeah, and Clint was _not_ accepting a ride from Thor this time around. He'd take the stairs and just ignore the aches and pains of his overtaxed body. He'd had enough problems getting out of the building he'd used as a vantage point during most of the battle, what with all the explosions making it a bit unstable on most of the top floors. He really did not need to add a freak out on a teammate to the list of things he wished he'd never done the past two or three days. _

_He was having enough issues not side-eyeing the Hulk as they walked as it was. It was one thing to fight with him, and another to just _be_ here with the creature, with nothing much to distract him from the Hulk's overwhelming presence._

_"Stop debating it and just get up here," Natasha's voice echoed through the comms, exasperated and amused to Clint's practiced ear. "He's not going to stay unconscious much longer."_

_Considering they'd been walking even as Stark complained about his ruined suit, and Natasha knew that, no one took her snapping very seriously. _

_"We're coming; just kick him in the head if he wakes up." Clint responded anyway, wanting to avoid any possibility of Stark poking Nat to get a reaction. The man had that slightly-unfocused look to him that likely meant he either had a concussion and was trying to hide it, or he was looking for a distraction to take attention off of himself so he could lick his wounds in private._

_Clint was familiar with both responses to stress and injury. He didn't want to bet that Stark would _not_ default to poking at his partner. He hadn't been particularly impressed with her spying on him. Stark had been _incredibly_ vocal about that._

_Not that Natasha had cared, but still…_

_"Hulk smash puny god again."_

_The deep, rumbling voice had not been expected, because Clint had only ever heard the Hulk grunt or roar before this. Also, he hadn't known that the Hulk retained the ability to _talk_ once Banner was out of control. How the hell was that missed?_

_Judging by the fact that Stark and Rogers had both just jerked around to stare at the Hulk, he wasn't the only one surprised. Stark's expression was gleeful and Rogers looked thoughtful._

_Right up until they both almost ran into the doors of Stark Tower's eastern entrance, since they weren't watching where they were walking. Clint really tried to hold in his smirk, but he was tired. _

_"You…smashed Loki?" Rogers asked, staring up at Hulk as he walked, head turned enough that he could see in front of him and behind. Some brave Stark Industries employees who had been cautiously coming out of whatever cover they found hurriedly ducked behind furniture and through doors when they saw the Hulk muscle his way through the doors, not phased at all by the necessity. Clint couldn't blame them. _

_Hulk grinned, the sort of grin that promised mayhem. "Hulk smash," he agreed. _

_Stark blinked, and then started laughing. "Big guy, no one deserved a smashing more! C'mon, kids, elevator to the top is this way. Or mostly to the top, the Hulk won't fit in the regular ones, but there's freight elevator that gets up pretty close and we can-"_

Natasha's elbow to his side brought him back to the present conversation. He tuned back into Kyle's commentary, trying not to wince because his partner had managed to nail one of his bruises.

If you weren't paying attention during a mission, you deserved what you got; he'd get no sympathy from Natasha for spacing out right now. He'd probably missed something important, too, but he couldn't bring himself to care as much as he should. It would be easy enough to figure out who this loose-lipped scientist was. Stark Tower had only just come on line, all of its various bits and pieces finally put together the same night Loki had hijacked Clint's brain. There were a limited number of personnel who would have been in the building before it was online, and even then, any male staff member could automatically be eliminated, along with anyone who wasn't a scientist. Getting the name of the hotel owner wouldn't be hard, and from there, scanning Stark's employment files would net them the name.

"You know, that press conference earlier had Stark making some valid points, but I think it's a load of crap, honestly."

"Press conference?" Clint leapt on the phrase, only just remembering to keep to James' Southern accent. Kyle gave them both a surprised look, eyes flitting from one face to another. A faint frown creased his brows as his eyes narrowed slightly.

_Damn, he's going to make us in another minute…_

"I thought you would have heard. Stark gave a press conference at about 11 this morning. About the Avengers."

"He did?" Shari pouted up at her husband. "We missed it! James, I just _knew_ something interesting would happen after we turned off the TV!"

James smiled indulgently and shrugged. "Yeah, but you know how the noise keeps me up. It was a long day and I wanted _some_ sleep, since I didn't manage any at all last night." he defended, before turning back to Kyle. "So, can you tell us what he said?"

Kyle had started smiling again at their byplay, suspicion eased. James' smile didn't budge, but that had been far too close for comfort.

"Well," Kyle said, back in his role of gossip handler. "Stark didn't really _say_ much of anything. He danced around more questions than he answered. He had some funny name he called those aliens – Chitty-somethings – and he's claiming the guy who organized the attack is a Norse god!"

"No!" James obligingly exclaimed. "Seriously?"

Kyle nodded emphatically. "Loki, apparently. And his _brother_," Clint could _hear_ the sarcasm dripping of off the word, "was apparently that red-caped dude with the lightning. Even called himself Thor." Kyle waved a dismissive hand. "Or Stark called him that, but anyway. The really interesting thing is, even though Stark refused to name any of his teammates besides the Thor dude, our contact lady thinks she's actually seen the Hulk in…well, it sounds crazy, but in _human form_. Like he's…I dunno. Some sort of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde."

_Shit, again_, Clint thought. He felt Natasha tense next to him and they didn't need to speak with each other to know they had to get out of here, _now._ If that woman had seen Banner, and saw no problem in sharing the information, she needed to be shut up, and the quicker the better.

Since his hand was already out of sight, Clint slipped it into his pocket, speed-dialing a number that was always programed into his phone, no matter which name the phone itself was listed under.

In her purse, abandoned on the counter in favor of the stories, Shari's phone began playing a cheery pop tune.

It would take at least five minutes to get out of here without raising suspicions, but they couldn't afford to cut and run now. They very _last _thing they needed was someone connecting the new couple stranded in Richmond by the attack with Hawkeye and Black Widow.

Part of Clint wished it would take longer, even as he wanted to be _out_ of these people's lines of sight right now. He wasn't especially looking forward to telling Sitwell that they'd found trouble so soon after being released for a supposed vacation.

Or to having to tell Stark one of his employees apparently didn't know the meaning of the word _discretion_.

_Those_ fireworks would be spectacular, to say the least. The man might not have any shame about sharing the details of his personal life with the media, but he got down right _possessive_ over his tech and his employees. It was one of the only good things Natasha had had to say about Tony Stark vs. Iron Man. No one messed with his employees without feeling the full wrath of SI fall on their heads. Likewise, those who messed with SI tech in a way that wasn't officially approved of, or messed with other employees…well, it was probably fortunate they were only _metaphorically_ thrown out the door given the dim view Stark _and _Potts took on such behaviors.

But first, James and Shari had a flight to catch.

* * *

Benji sat and stared dumbly at the files on his screen, a damning ID photo taking up most of his attention.

He wasn't sure what to think of this, to be honest. He'd known, in some carefully ignored part of his brain, that it was a possibility, of course. It _had_ to be one from the moment they saw such uncharacteristic behavior out of Will in that footage. And the notes in his file, about SHIELD vs. IMF missions…well, that only added believability now, didn't it?

He hadn't wanted to believe, though, because the thought hurt. And he couldn't see a _point_ to it, even now. None of them had been…well, Ethan had at…several points, to be honest, but not _now_. Not after Moscow, and Dubai and Mumbai…

It didn't make sense. There was no gain. No goal or mission objective achieved that Benji could figure out, even with access to the SHIELD files he had hacked.

"Benji?"

Starting slightly, Benji looked up to see that Ethan and Jane were both twisted around to stare at him in concern. The car had pulled off to the side of the interstate, safely out of the way of the speeding cars.

"I-" Benji started, and then shook his head. Shifting, he passed the laptop to the front seat to let them look for themselves.

Jane blanched as she saw the picture and read the documents currently queued up on his screen. Ethan's face went tight and blank.

"I-" Benji began again, having to swallow against the hurt rising in his throat. "I don't think William Brandt actually exists."

On the screen, William Brandt's face stared out at them, a SHIELD logo in the background, and plain black text underneath.

**SHIELD Agent: Barton, Clinton F. Level 6**

* * *

**A/N2: I'm student teaching for the next five months, so while you probably WILL have a chapter at some point, it will not be soon. Please bear with me, I won't forget this story, I promise, but my degree comes first.  
**

**And on that note... *ducks for cover* Don't hate me for the cliffhanger! You knew they'd have to find out at some point!**


End file.
